When Reform MPs last week argued that the Canadian Wheat Board should have to open its books to the auditor general of Canada, they had some high-level bureaucratic support on their side.
Auditor general Denis Desautels has repeatedly made the same point to the Liberal government, although privately.
“The auditor general has been in private communication with the government on this and that has been his view,” said Johanne McDuff, a spokesperson for the auditor-general.
“Now, it is up to Parliament.”
To both the opposition and the auditor general, the Liberals said “no.”
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Amendments to make the CWB accountable to the government’s chief auditor were defeated by the Liberals in votes Monday evening.
The Liberal argument was that the CWB already is audited by Deloitte and Touche and those results are made available to Parliament.
That is enough, they argued, and more public than the audit results done on any of the wheat board’s private sector grain trading competitors.
Canadian Wheat Board minister Ralph Goodale said private auditing is sufficient because the CWB handles farmers’ money rather than government money.
He said MPs can call the private auditors before a Commons committee if they want to question their audit.
But he remained adamant that the government auditor not be given access to the books, despite Desautels’ private arguments that it involves multi-billion dollar guarantees that put pubic funds at risk and therefore should be open to more detailed scrutiny by the public auditor.
